131563-lets-talk-about-population-exiles-vs-dominions-page-3
Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5 Content Oh that was just the "socially acceptable" list. Now we know your interest in Aurin is not totally pure of heart. That's nasty, baby. You nasty. :lol: ;) | |} ---- ---- Which is easy, because now you have targets. B) | |} ---- I've seen someone who made a Chua and RPs them as a Lopp. That might be something fun to try while you're playing on Dominion. | |} ---- LOL I admit, in various games I've played with various friends...if they chose "wrong" and we met in a BG or WPvP, or even "instanced" wpvp like Tol Barad or Ashran...yes. You know who to pick out :D | |} ---- ---- I am hoping for cross-faction hairstyles at some point. Either that, or a hairstyle package on the Cash Shop that opens up a set of all-new hairstyles! | |} ---- Yes! Little things like customization honestly are a HUGE factor when picking my race and faction. I make a character that is best fitting to who I want to be in the game and it really has nothing to do with the faction. If Dominion had more options I would play that side. I love the Draken but their coloring options are just not for me. | |} ---- The issue with Aurin is that so many people play them. Obviously I am not seriously suggesting their removal. Edited September 22, 2015 by Mental Surge | |} ---- ---- Clearly you are in minority. | |} ---- Which is fine, but it doesn't make my opinion any less valid. | |} ---- ---- Haha, that's kind of how I feel but I don't want to start any arguments over something so silly. | |} ---- Can you stop it with your passive aggressiveness already. I like the Dominion how they are as well, and don't want to see something like an Aurin on our side. They have like 0 appeal to me and don't fit in with the whole Dominion picture (putting Lore aside). And I agree, adding a "cute" race will probably only be a temporary fix to the population problem. | |} ---- ---- No, I'm not referring to just the Dominion population as I'm willing to bet a lot (if not most) dominion players hate Aurin. I'm speaking of the gaming population as a whole. The cutesy race draws in a lot of people. As long as the exiles have the dirty anime cat people, they will always outnumber the dominion. Oh come on, it's clear a very large portion of the playerbase plays aurin. Thus a very large portion of the playerbase LIKES cutesy races. Thus I'm willing to bet that if the Dominion had Aurin instead, the population imbalance would be very different. I am not saying that he is in the minority as a dominion player, I am saying is probably in the minority as a Wildstar player. No offense but.... it's pretty obvious why you feel that way. Edited September 23, 2015 by Mental Surge | |} ---- ---- I love it when folks blubber about Aurin. Makes me go roll another Aurin alt. Even better is come F2P, I can have even MOAR AURIN. :D | |} ---- ---- ---- Yeah ... that suggestion is about ... oh ... 15 pages too late. :lol: ;) | |} ---- Better than never ey :lol: I wasn't in a hurry since I have made that same suggestion in like 10 other threads about the same pop issue. And since devs are listening, Carbine will probably implement it in about 10 years. | |} ---- Dominion player here who doesn't hate Aurin. Though the reason I joined Dominion has more to do with Draken and hipster reasons (wanting to be part of the actual underdogs). While the cutesy part does help, what would really draw me to Aurin is that they are a matriarchal race who likes being nice to people. But once again, I need to be a hipster lol. Though I do have an Aurin I may eventually play when I level up my eight or so other alts. | |} ---- No. At least in my opinion ;) And the reasons why this is not a good solution and the 15 pages in this thread about fluffy aurins, lore and breaking down faction walls are wrong, are the following: 1) Creating a new race or faction wall changes requires time and resources unavailable which are most likely very scarce at this time 2) Carbino has stated that fluffy Aurins are very close in numbers to humans (and others?) 3) Any fluffy races or lore changes, while it may make more new players join the Dominion, are not a long-term solution. Currently more new players join Exiles over Dominion, on average. If with these changes more new players join Dominion over Exiles on average. The factions would be balanced temporary, untill the Dominion starts to outnumber Exiles... Then what? Introduce a new fluffy race into Exiles to compensate for that? What I think we need (obviously after re-evaluating F2P release), is a cheap, long-term solution. (See my earlier posts in this thread) Edited September 23, 2015 by Plexieglas | |} ---- I'm sorry if I've missed something but if one faction has a pretty race and the other faction has a pretty race. Where is the imbalance exactly? Also Luminai aren't fluffy by any means, gorgeous, yes, but not fluffy :P | |} ---- You didn't miss much, honestly. Plexi seems to think that simply giving the out-numbered faction some XP buffs is more than enough to convince people to go Dominion. I am ... not convinced. Especially given that pretty much everyone who responded to that idea was like "yeah, not so much." ;) | |} ---- ---- Heck yeah! Enjoy yourself and if you need any advice, feel free to add Lana Kaine (my Dominion main) to your friends list! | |} ---- Will do! Now I just have to decide on a class... What's the most needed class? Are tanks needed? | |} ---- ---- Every Class is a DPS and a "Support" role (either Heals or Tank). So Warrior, Stalker and Engineer are DPS/Tanks. The other classes are DPS/Heals. So no matter what you choose, you'll have the option to play a different role. That said, I don't recommend solo-questing as a Tank or Healer, just stick with mostly DPS abilities while out on your own. As for which the community needs more ... the real answer is "Yes, please!" | |} ---- Well... 50% make Chuas. So there's a 50% chance that you will make a Chua. | |} ---- ---- RPing and dressup are both huge and vital aspects of Wildstar, unlike PvP which is only done by a handful that PvPs :lol: | |} ---- ---- ---- If you own the game you can play on the PTR without a beta key | |} ---- That basically proves my point. Why does imbalance matter for either of those things? You dress up alone, and you can RP with both factions. | |} ---- I have a beta key, I tried F2P already. I just purchased the game and I want to play on retail so my character isn't wiped. | |} ---- You need to think a little further than 1 gorgeous/fluffy race on each faction = balanced factions. I created a silly graph to show what I mean, it illustrates the following: Blue line: Active players on Exile Red line: Active players on Dominion First black circle: "Wildstar launch" Second black circle: Today's situation, and hypothetical release of new fluffy race for dominion, in order to "balance" factions as 15 pages of this thread suggest. Third black circle: Break point where Dominion takes over Exile population, the problem resurfaces. So what's the big deal? It is extremely difficult (read: impossible) to perfectly balance a subjective matter as "race/faction attractiveness", on average, there will always be more players joining one faction over the other. Even if this was possible, the blue and red lines in the graph would stay the same distance from each other forever, meaning the population gap would never be closed. Introducing a new race is not a scale-able solution, if it succeeds at making the dominion more attractive, this will eventually (could be in 1 month, could be in 3 years) lead to the Dominion active population overtaking the Exile population, then the problem starts again. The 15 pages in this thread, in my opinion, do not provide a long-term solution. What we need, is a scale-able incentive for new players, to start their adventure on the faction with the lowest active population. Most people in this thread, including myself, are not new players launching wildstar for the first time and deciding which faction to pick. In essence we are all biased. XP buffs are just a suggestion, the incentive would need to be good enough to convince enough new players, so the average new joiners DO join the lowest active faction. Let me ask you this: As a new player, would you create your first character on a faction with a lower population for 1% XP bonus during leveling? What about 10%? What about 50% and 10% extra reputation gain? I exaggerate because I want to illustrate the point that an incentive CAN be enough to tip the balance, it just needs to be carefully chosen and scale-able depending on how far the factions are out of balance. PVP is indeed an important aspect but you have to realize a larger population (even if those are for a large part RP'ers) attract more new players, creating a vicious circle which will eventually lead to a PVP queue inbalance (and this is already the case today). Equal populations are in the best interest of everyone in this type of game, going to equal guild recruitment pools and active in-game communities. The F2P release will hopefully ease the pain, perhaps even bring the factions in close balance of eachother. If not, the above points still stand. Edited September 23, 2015 by Plexieglas | |} ---- Many things. Many :ph34r: The Emperor wants more citizens to rule over. Also difficulties organizing raid groups/finding new guild mates. Variety and quantity of goods on AH/EX lacking compared to a bigger faction, harder to make plat. Running around in a huge, empty town feels lonely. Friends leaving to join the other side because it's crowdier there. Oh, I see. I thought beta had no effect on Real servers, didn't even know they didn't wipe your beta characters if you purchased... Edited September 23, 2015 by Whimsicalalien | |} ---- Nah, don't care. If I want to Aurin, I will Aurin no matter what :mellow: Why would I go for +50%exp to Draken if I don't want to Draken? | |} ---- Not ALL new players need to be convinced by an incentive. If you really like Aurin, by all means roll Exiles. If you want to play with friends on Exiles, please do so. What the incentive does is tip the balance and convince a few of those new players joining the game every day. Just enough so that on average, slightly more new players start leveling on Dominion over Exile. Edited September 23, 2015 by Plexieglas | |} ---- Beta doesn't have any effect on real (live) servers. Dragon Punch was saying he bought the game so he could play on the real servers, because we're not wiping those. The beta server, aka PTR, do not get their characters transferred to live. They may or may not get wiped, but unless the PTR is online, you can't access those characters. The characters on the live servers will still be accessible next week, the characters on PTR will not be. | |} ---- What I see in this graph is both populations quickly growing to a point where you can happily do whatever you want on either faction and should stop worrying about the fact that the other faction has OMG EVEN MOAR PEOPLES. | |} ---- Oh, I get it now. Thanks :wub: | |} ---- That is absolutely correct. And it is most likely what we will see starting next week. Right now a lot of Dominion guilds are struggling with recruitment, there are no players talking in global chat, there are no communities, => this could all be solved overnight. In my opinion, population balance is still very important, even with a relative high active player base on both sides (as the graph indicates). I hope this will be re-evaluated in the coming months, and if intervention is needed, at least "some action" is taken. And not in the form of payable faction transfers as that other popular MMO I know. Edited September 23, 2015 by Plexieglas | |} ---- It'll be like back in the day, Aurin using zerg tactics to compensate for lack of skill. *shots fired* Edited September 23, 2015 by henzilla | |} ---- What's the matter, bro? Scared of a few fluffy, little Aurin? Are you chicken...oh...oh... um... nevermind, I guess, carry on. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- You are implying that heavy RPers and pretty princess dressup players don't PvP. This is most certainly not the case. My guild has a few pretty princess dressup players that love PvP. | |} ---- ---- ---- While there are unique looks, some players just like PvP. I know of a few who just like stomping on other players while being pretty. | |} ---- Guilty! Those Dominion Warrior and Spellslinger sets, am I right? | |} ---- I said that people who RP heavily and playd ressup are less a smaller part of the PVP community, not that they don't PVP at all. | |} ---- If you mean a Beta key, it's open beta now. You don't need a key. | |} ---- Retail. I bought a copy of the game from the official site. They charged me but I've been waiting for 5 hours now, no key in sight. | |} ---- Contact support. Posting in a random thread unrelated to your issue probably won't get you the kind of attention you want. | |} ---- Or more accurately... Stop playing. | |} ---- Or, y'know, we enjoy PvP. *coughs and points at self* xD | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- Actually, NPCs of opposing factions have been seen interacting with one another just fine. Off the top of my head, I can come up with three examples. First being in Wigwali Village in Whitevale. Second and Third are in Malgrave in two different areas (Shinysand Oasis and that "hidden" volleyball place). I think it would be fair to keep factions separate until level 50, because that's when storylines start to converge. Frankly, I was quite disappointed when Exiles and Dominion choose to kill each other in questlines rather than band together against a common enemy that threatens to destroy them both. Missed opportunity there. But yeah, I completely agree with how Dominion is set up to be really unappealing to most players and that Carbine failed to make each side appear neutral (unless you really pay attention to story and stuff . . . but no one does that). | |} ---- As much as I'd love to make an Osun or Falkrin, they make no sense for Exiles. They're flat-out evil races, aggressive to the point of no return. Not to mention that the Exiles are squatting in an old Osun fortress, and we kinda started a war with the Falkrin. I'd love Freebots, personally. I know, I know, Freebots just wanna be free and wouldn't take sides, but I can imagine some joining up, and their 'walking tin-can' aesthetic fits in just fine with the Exiles. | |} ---- But only if you don't pay TOO much attention. Otherwise, you find all the atrocities in the Dominion backstory that are bigger than all the other atrocities the Exiles commit in-game. :p | |} ---- Like honestly they can make it work and I feel like it would be interesting for the story. They are literally sitting on the "Blood Elf" race. And Freebots is a good idea. | |} ---- I would MUCH rather we have a more unique race. The luminai are basically just elves. How about a plant like race like the one from guild wars 2? Edited September 24, 2015 by Mental Surge | |} ---- ---- OR, maybe they could just use the existing races, announce an uneasy truce between the Exiles and the Dominion as they both fight the greater foe of the Entity and the Strain. That way they wouldn't have to recreate an entire new set of character races and rewrite the backstory to accommodate a bunch of flatly lore-incompatible combinations like "Mordesh whose existence the Dominion not only tolerates but endorses". | |} ---- ---- ---- Haha yes. While we sit here arguing the nuance of Artemis Vin's nose hairs, Carbine could instantly solve the problem by giving Dominion something like blood elves. | |} ---- | |} ---- ---- ---- This thread will vanish off the front page of the Forums within an hour of the F2P transition. To be replaced with gamer resumes by the score. :lol: | |} ---- "MY IMPRESSIONS OF WILDSTAR" "PLAYED FOR 3 HOURS AND THIS IS WHAT I THINK" | |} ---- Hi, my name is xxDEADPOOLxx and I led a guild in WoW for the last 10 years, full raid cleared, top five universal raid guild, you might have heard of me. I just made it to level 12 and am really enjoying the game, but I feel I need to come and spread my very-limited opinions and experience here as the Gospel According to Wade Wilson ... TEN! TEN MORE WARNING POINTS! HA HA HA HA HA!! | |} ---- This is the most interesting idea I've seen in a while thread. I'd play a brainwashed, Myrcalus worshipping Aurin. | |} ---- Honestly...yeah. I'd go for that. xD | |} ---- I personally think having two unique factions makes a more compelling game, but it has to be done right. I think the push to make the factions "neutral" is a bad move, since choosing one of two factions will be based on appeal. By making factions neutral, you, well... neutralize... the differences between them, making them both more bland. I personally think the best way to go is to play up the differences, however the trick is that both sides need to be compelling in their own ways to help facilitate as many different types of people as possible. This helps with the overall immersion and taps into a sort of primal tribalism that pretty much all of us have instinctively. ...and I don't buy the attractiveness thing, either. I don't think either faction "wins" as far as attractiveness. I mean, there's pinups of sexy draken women all over the place and they've got horns for starssake. Edited September 24, 2015 by Ratstomper | |} ---- I feel the same, not to mention that implementing that solution would take a lot of time and resources and is therefore not realistic in my opinion. Before this thread vanishes of the front page like TexArcana mentioned... To summarize: the proposed solutions we as a community have gathered during the nearly 20 pages of this thread are the following: 1) Increase Dominion attractiveness by introducing: new race/lore changes (seems to have the most support) 2) (Partially) Break down faction walls 3) Implement scale-able incentive in the form of a (XP) buff, for characters under level 50 on the faction with the least active population (least popular) | |} ---- Well, MY idea was to just make the Dominion more interesting from a thematic standpoint. Also, worth noting that those solutions were all proposed separately. I don't think anyone intended to implement all 3 (for posterity's sake). | |} ---- I would add that solution to category one, together with race and lore changes. Obviously none of the solutions are implemented together, sorry if my post implied that. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- Gotta admit, that would make me far more willing to try out Dommie side, short of making the races more appealing somehow (even if just through more customization options). That was the one thing SWTOR had that made me willing to check out the Republic side despite all my mains being Imperial...I had access to my other resources. I wasn't just stuck in a new zone with nothin to my name. | |} ---- I do love the Chua! When the game launched I was gonna be a Chua Engineer, but then I went Exile for friends. Dominion will be next for sure. | |} ---- Do you really think many Exile players would then commit to playing actively on Dominion? How do you prevent too many players switching over (or not enough)? In my opinion, we need to balance factions using the new players joining Wildstar, by making the majority of those new players join the faction with the lowest active player base. Edited September 24, 2015 by Plexieglas | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Exactly. No cross-faction mail to alts and a lack of an account bank are archaic game design structures that urgently need revision. We're a long way past lore restrictions being any kind of justification for this antiquated design. The factions need balancing better and account wide features such as an account bank go a long way to helping with this. Most other MMOs realised this long ago, Wildstar needs to get up to speed. I really wish the F2P launch had been much more about adding much needed QoL improvements and polish, rather than redesigning (and potentially breaking) so many things that were never a problem in the first place. Alas. | |} ---- ---- Me too, but I'm one of those faction loyalty people. I like having my side. | |} ---- ---- I'm sure it's been fairly obvious from my previous posts but...yeah, me too. In some games it's not such a big deal to me but in others I get really attached to one and the other is forevermore "the enemy" lol. Not to say I don't want them both to have a fairly even amount of players (it's no fun if everyone's in the same boat, after all), but I'll always fight against completely breaking down the walls and merging them. Cross-faction Mail? That'd be nice and helpful for a lot of people. Account-wide bank space (useable by both factions)? That'd also be nice. Even cross-faction queues and housing, sure. I guess, why not. But when you propose cross-faction guilds, circles, etc...I'm gonna have to try and stop ya riiiight there lol. (That said, it'd be nice if we could at least /say chat to each other without having to fake report spam or using an addon. I mean, humans probably speak the same language as the Cassians, and over the centuries of this war, I assume even the "newer" to the group Aurin would have learned the "common" language.) I'm not sure what else could be proposed in this thread that hasn't been already. Between the ideas of scaling % buffs to the "losing" side, new races, all races available, all races + all classes available, changing lore, adding new lore, etc...it seems to be going in circles and loopedy loops now. I really do hope that Tuesday heralds the start of a more even Faction balance...even though I'm not going back to my PvP server roots, I do miss seeing Dommies out and about. Edited September 24, 2015 by Kavi | |} ---- I would even go so far as to say no cross-faction queuing, just because it makes no sense. No exiles are going to help the dominion that destroyed their planets and ruined their lives. No dominion is going to be part of a group of traitorous heathens. The two sides are irreconcilable and should be irreconcilable. I could see some very limited scenarios where dominion and exiles would be forced to work together, but it needs to make sense and not violate lore. I understand that people want convenience, but c'mon, let's not violate the game world for the sake of convenience. Besides, I'm not playing with any of the Emporer's lapdogs. :P | |} ---- I like your distinction between factions and faction walls. I completely agree to some degree. I'd like to chip in your last paragraph about Exiles not having enough incentive to go Dominion below. I also said it before, I don't think we need to balance factions by transferring existing Exile players to Dominion. This means that anyone here, suggesting to have cross-faction banks or mailboxes and making the game more cross-faction and alt-friendly in general, is not part of the target audience. Instead, I suggest to only target brand new players joining Wildstar who haven't decided on their first character yet, give them enough of a carrot-on-a-stick in the form of large enough incentive to roll on faction with the lowest active player base. | |} ---- This is highly possible! The main heroic narrative for the Dominion is one that involves a Crisis of Faith. The empire has just recovered from a dark period. The events on Arboria have damaged the public perception of the Dominion and made the Exiles stronger than ever. Forces within and without the Dominion seek to destabilize it. The Emperor has, for mysterious reasons, been unable to show his face in public for 50 years. If you really think about it, the Dominion is not in a good place at the start of the game... it just presents the public image that it is. Nexus is meant to be the thing that saves the Dominion. The second coming. The promise of an Eldan Legacy. A chance for the Dominion to claim its destiny. A Holy Grail. A Rallying Cry. ...But... it isn't. I hate to spoil the world story for people who are just starting, but I will say that Nexus turns out to be nothing like anyone in the Dominion expected. There are revelations hidden on that planet that shake the very foundations of the Dominion's belief systems, and could rip the empire to shreds if left unchecked. Complicating things further, the game presents the Dominion as being very flawed. You see first hand how the old policies are failing in Ellevar and Deradune, and you're often forced to clean up after the messes of DRED. You're made uncomfortable. You're very rarely asked to directly be the bad guy, but the signs of the Dominion's twisted world view are all over the place. They should make you uncomfortable. What the game currently doesn't have you do is do anything about that. The Dominion's story should be a direct confrontation with the Eldan's mistakes. Seeing their flaws, observing how they're reflected in the empire, and finding ways to move beyond them. It should be about the concept of Destiny, and what that actually means. It should be about digging your way out of decadence. It should examine what a massive governing body should be. The Hero of the Dominion shouldn't just be a propaganda figure, or a person who happens to kill a lot of Exiles... the Hero of the Dominion should be the person who saves the Dominion, from the Exiles, the horrors of Nexus, and itself. There's an ideal behind the Dominion, somewhere. Maybe even a genuinely admirable one. If we want to make the Dominion narratively viable, we should find it, bring it to the surface, and fight for it. Edited September 24, 2015 by Doctor Galex | |} ---- My good doctor, you get story and narrative more than most. You've made me see the Dominion in a new light, and I'm loving it. I think you're just the bee's knees. | |} ---- I mean, I can see the appeal... I've just never really gotten all that devoted to one side or the other. Sure in WoW and Rift I'd be all "Grrr Alliance/Guardians!" but then I happily played alts on those factions and I welcomed with open arms Rift's tearing down of the faction barriers. Guess I just value being able to play with friends far more than a faction loyalty I really don't get into. :S | |} ---- I have to use this English degree somehow! Really, a lot of this is already in the game, it's just not as obvious as it could be. The game often takes the comparatively easier route of portraying the Dominion as an evil empire for laughs/drama. I can respect that, but I feel like the story is much more engaging if you take a nuanced approach. The Arkship is a step in the right direction. | |} ---- By remarkable coincidence, the Hero of the Dominion that you describe already exists in most respects. His name is Serrick Brightland, and he was unwilling to stand by and watch while the Dominion corrupted itself in precisely the way you describe. He's one of the earliest Exiles. The only new information since those days is that the Vigilant Doctrine has been even more obviously revealed as a power grab based on a falsehood than it was on the day it was first announced. The Hero of the Dominion that you're describing isn't a member of the Dominion at all, and has no reason to fight against Exiles. | |} ---- ---- That's true, but there's a fundamental difference here. Serrick Brightland attempted to take action by rebelling against the Dominion. His first response (according to the wildstar timeline) was to launch an attack on Dominion Forces. When the Dominion's military force proved too much to handle, he eventually became a secessionist. Yes, his motivations are similar to my hypothetical hero of the Dominion, but his actions are what make him an Exile. And few Exiles are nearly as idealistic. My Hero of the Dominion would need to be a reformist. Someone who works within the system for the greater good. A good example would be the Loyalist storylines from City of Heroes. In those stories, you played someone operating within a corrupt and evil empire, but you had the option of embracing the positive ideals of said Empire for the greater good. Granted, that storyline eventually railroaded you into rebelling, but what if it didn't? We've got positive virtues. We've got a villainous Ghost House to fight. And we still don't know the actual purpose of the Empire. What if it's something horrible that we don't find particularly agreeable? Wouldn't that prompt us to try and change our fate? (The Dominion was probably Nazrek's idea. I hate that guy) There are ways to be heroic within the framework of the Dominion that don't involve pulling a Brightland and trying to stage a coup. | |} ---- ---- You mean this timeline? Brightland's first action was public criticism of caste-based abuses against the lowborn, for which he was falling out of favor with his superiors. His next action was refusing to gun down those same Dominion citizens who were revolting against those abuses, for which he was declared a traitor and condemned to execution. At that point, he resorted to violence against the Dominion rather than accept being killed for the crime of disobeying the very ruling class that you were just declaring the problem one or two posts back. There's no point in having a discussion about Heroes of the Dominion who are willing to fight to save the Dominion from itself while you dismiss people who have already attempted to do exactly that as violent traitors. | |} ---- Okay, I will give you that. But in the intervening years, the Exiles goals have changed from "fighting to save the Dominion" to "let's kill Dommies". That reformist impulse is no longer present in most cases. The longest lived Exiles are also the ones with every reason to destroy the Dominion. The kind of narrative I'm proposing cannot be explored from the Exile faction, unless there's a push toward homogenizing the two factions. Exiles no interest in preserving the Dominion. They just want it to go away. My argument is that we should frame the Dominion's story as an examination as what the Dominion is, what it's flaws are, and what should be done about it. You can't do that from an Exile Perspective, because the Dominion are raw antagonists to the Exiles. You can hit some of those themes, but you can't see things from the inside. You can't look at the politics. You can't oust a corrupt figure in a political coup. You just see an evil empire. | |} ---- ---- That makes sense, actually. That moment of introspection. | |} ---- ---- ---- The bit of the Dommie I've played during original beta, and again part of F2P Beta... seemed fine. I went Exile because my Son picked Empire for us to play in SWTOR.. so it was my turn to pick. | |} ---- I don't see it that bad I mean, in the game you can see how the explorers and scientist usually work together, I have seen chuas and aurin work together to discover a simcore so why no to do dungeons or any other content? I understand your point but I think we could work it around | |} ---- 2 wrongs doesn't make it right. This is an endless discussion though. You're either pro-faction or anti-faction, and you're not going to succeed in changing one side's mind. | |} ---- ---- Why? If cross-faction groups are implemented who is that going to materially hurt? What is the mechanical harm? Yes I know the concept offends some people, to them I say "then don't join them". | |} ---- Hey! That means you got in! YAY! | |} ---- One time, I did a WB train while coordinating with Exiles via account whispers. I've also been known to do contract and the like with Exiles. So I don't really mind cross-faction instances. Hell, I fought my own faction in rated battlegrounds. I actually think allowing cross faction groups and the like would solve a lot of population issues without trying to convince players to choose one faction over the other. | |} ---- ---- ---- This is how I feel . . . Sillyness ahead! Dominion: We had a disagreement hundreds of years ago, but let's keep hunting them down because of spite! Exiles: Rather than finding a place Dominion doesn't care about, let's just settle on that one planet that the Dominion considers sacred. Because spite! | |} ---- ---- ---- Chua think make good decision! | |} ---- ---- ---- Somewhere it's been said (might have been Pappy's Twitter feed) that habitable planets are insanely rare. (Which makes Arboria all the more inexcusable) | |} ---- Err....actually the Exiles settled there in part, because it was either "Nexus" or "Die because the Arkship was on its last leg." | |} ---- Didn't the Exiles find Nexus first, and started to settle as a means to escape the Dominion, not realizing it was sacred to them? | |} ---- ---- ---- There are hardly any habitable planets, so no... there weren't. Marauders are more space-faring. | |} ---- The Darkspur Cartel comes from the Darkspur Nublae. Sure they like to travel to Nexus in their space ships and hit other spaceships (maybe?) but they come from, and get supplies from planets. Anyway, It's a silly thing to squabble over. The Exiles picked nexus because we wouldn't have much of a game if not. | |} ---- They could have settled on Arboria. Sure, it was clearly inhabited by Aurin but Nexus was also clearly inhabited by other races. This is also not taking into consideration that other races (Ekose, Lopp, etc) have homeworlds as well. The neutral races clearly take no heat for helping Exiles so it wouldn't be much of a stretch for them to work out arrangements with them. Personally, I feel like a truce should have been formed by letting the Exiles have Arboria. The whole reason the Exiles separated for the Dominion was because they didn't agree with the way they revered the Eldan. So to me, it would be silly for them not to realize that Nexus was sacred to them. I'm fairly certain Dorian Walker knew the significance of Nexus as well. Edited September 26, 2015 by Spider Bro Jenkins | |} ---- Chaos outnumbered Order on every server from launch til the servers went down. | |} ---- Don't forget this very important detail: the Aurin were a neutral race who didn't know about any conflict and who weren't a space-faring species. Yet the Dominion came over, confiscated their planet and sentenced them all to death (since they weren't doing anything to get the population off-world before the reaping). The only way this wouldn't happen to the homeworlds of the neutral races would be if they are a significant threat to the Dominion in the first place. Which makes the Dominion a bit of a bully, if you think about it. As for settling in Arboria, they actually couldn't because two reasons: 1- The Dominion was relentlessly chasing them all over the galaxy. They were trying to avoid fighting the Dominion, or at least a direct confrontation with them. 2- If they had done that the Dominion would have Planet Reaped the hell out of them. Not that they knew about this until it happened. I'm pretty sure the implication is that the straw that broke the Exile's back and made them want to fight the Dominion was the Ravaging of Arboria. One reason to settle on Nexus is that, if you are going to make your last stand, nothing is best than a place that is sacred for your enemy: they'll be reluctant to bombard your hideouts from orbit. I imagine they also expected to have much more time (or forever) before the Dominion found out about Nexus' location. Then they would have had the whole planet and, with it, all the neat Eldan technology to give them the edge if the Dominion ever came around. Except that didn't happen because the Dominion magically found out about the planet. Not that any of this matters. The power of the Dominion and the Exiles is completely dependent on the writer's mood and the 'meta-necessities' caused by a two-faction game. In the backstory and the Exile tutorial areas, the Exiles are the underdogs who are constantly being attacked and forced to flee. In the rest of the game, they are able to stand against the Dominion military and hold significant chunks of land despite the Dominion owning 'countless planets' (according to Durek, who is not a Dominion member and probably stopped counting after a while because it wasn't helping him punch anything to death). As for the 'out of game' necessities created by the faction system, the Exiles have to be of similar power to the Dominion in-universe because it isn't compelling to pick a faction and then find out that they are doomed to be wiped out by the other side. Edited September 26, 2015 by Ildur | |} ---- I don't feel this part was really relevant to my previous post. I actually think both the Dominion and Exiles are kinda stupid. Unfortunately, the writers couldn't really think of a good way for this all to make sense. I also already established I think it's stupid that the Dominion keeps chasing them. Which is why I figured letting the Exiles have Arboria would have been a better solution. Also, at least Durek Stonebreaker (and probably other Granok) want to keep fighting Dominion. There was this whole scene in Galeras where he basically says he doesn't care about the casualties as long as he gets revenge for Gnox. I remember Karas being pretty shocked about that as well. The Mordesh also want revenge. But I acknowledge it's fair to say that the Exile humans at this point just want to be left alone. In Everstar Grove, we saw that the Dominion will not hesitate to destroy at least some of Nexus so the Exiles wouldn't have it. I mean, they were destroying the forests and Elder Root (or whatever its name is) there. Dominion also don't really care for the Osun, so I could totally see them destroying Thayd. They also didn't hesitate essentially burning the Falkrin home in Deradune to the ground as well. I agree with you to an extent, but at the same time, I think the Dominion is willing to destroy quite a bit of Nexus to drive the Exiles away. This part I totally agree with. :) | |} ---- ---- ---- It is relevant because of this part: I was just pointing out that the Aurin were basically just a neutral race at the time. That didn't stop the Dominion from attacking them when they helped the Exiles. I presume the same would have happened to the Lopp or the Ekose homeworlds if the Exiles had stopped at their planets instead. But it's true that the lore is very inconsistent about what the Dominion is okay with. I think the only reason to keep the chase would be if the granok are a big pain in their rear, but I don't remember any lore specifying how much of a problem the granok were after Gnox and before Nexus. It's true. I guess the Dominion isn't very concerned about burning up their sacred sites if that means the Exiles don't get to use them. It's a very pragmatic approach for a society that worships the Eldan and anyone with their genetics as gods and almost-gods. Again, that inconsistency creeping up... Of course, in-universe, the Exiles didn't have any way of knowing that hiding in Nexus wouldn't stop the Dominion from bombarding the hell out of them. | |} ---- Ah! Now I see the connection! Sometimes when these debates happen, I feel like replies try to shift where the conversation goes and I thought this was happening again because it felt more you were trying to just show that the Dominion was bad and everything else should be thrown out the window. Apologies! That one thread in the Lore section tends to put me on guard lol. I'd like your post, but I'm a "like-*cupcake*" and used up all my likes today so it'll have to wait. On topic, yes it's very odd. Ekose and Lopp are actually actively aiding the Exiles on Nexus and there seem to be no consequences happening. I know it's not the same, but I would have thought the Dominion would have reacted the same way so it just ends up confusing on why they reacted the way they did on Arboria. "As they traveled the stars as guns-for-hire, the Granok retained a deep-seated hatred for the Dominion and took every opportunity to settle the score in blood." This is from the Granok Loremageddon, more specifically, the History section. So if that's the case, then I could imagine the Dominion continuing to give chase. Can't remember if Loremageddon says anything about Mordesh, but I like to think that they would actively try to take down the Dominion for revenge as well. The inconsistencies make me sad, but I suppose I shouldn't expect too much from the game. I feel like Dragon Age and GW2 spoiled me a bit lol. WildStar is new and I feel like they are still working on making lore more consistent. | |} ----